Though it might have seemed that the major play-calling mishap that closed out the first half of the Browns' 20-14 loss to the Ravens Saturday was coach Pat Shurmur's fault, quarterback Seneca Wallace claimed the mistake was his.
Cleveland had the ball at the Ravens' 5-yard line in a first-and-goal situation with 34 seconds left in the half when Wallace threw a two-yard pass to tight end Evan Moore. Though the Browns had no timeouts left, Moore failed to get out of bounds and the clock continued to run. Instead of spiking the ball to stop the clock on the next play, however, Wallace handed off to running back Peyton Hillis, who was brought down at the line of scrimmage. Shurmur could be seen gesturing urgently as the clock wound down, but the Browns headed into the locker room without scoring.
"I think it was just bad communication on my behalf," Wallace said during the team's post-game press conference.
Wallace said he heard the coach yelling, "Clock, clock, clock," but called for the run instead, in an effort to "get an easy one right there at the end."
"So, at that point, you know, it's not the head coach's fault, it's probably my job to make sure that I get everybody on the right page," he said. "At that point in the game, the crowd is into it and it's tough."
Wallace said he was worried about confusing his team.
"It was just my decision, and I went with it, and (Shurmur) was yelling, 'Clock, clock, clock,' and I didn't know if we were going to do it, I didn't want to yell, 'Clock, clock, clock,' have somebody jump offsides," Wallace said. "We didn't know what we were in, so, it was a tough situation. I should have handled it better."
Shurmur blamed a communication breakdown.
"I would have never called a run in that situation with that much time," Shurmur said, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "There was some communication there that didn't play through."
